National's Boss Favors Paying College Athletes

April 10, 1991|By WARNER HESSLER Staff Writer

NORFOLK — Frank Deford said he just shook his head the other day when he read that Kenny Anderson, Georgia Tech's outstanding basketball player, was dropping out of school after his sophomore year to enter the National Basketball Association

draft.

``Kenny Anderson said he was turning pro because his mother was poor and sick,'' Deford, a guest speaker on the Glennan Lecture Series, said Tuesday night at Old Dominion University.

Deford, editor-in-chief of The National, a 14-month-old national sports daily, said there was no justification for Anderson having to leave college to earn money.

``Isn't there a way to maybe advance him some money and keep him in college?'' Deford asked.

Deford, hailed by GQ magazine as the world's greatest sports writer, said there is a simple solution to keeping athletes such as Anderson in college and ending a majority of the abuses in the alleged amateur world of college athletics.

Let the athletes major in their favorite sport, and pay them to play.

``These athletes bring so much money into a school from gate receipts and television,'' Deford said, ``and it seems only natural that these athletes should share in the wealth.

``I'm not talking about field hockey, baseball or badminton players. I'm talking about football and basketball players. There are so many abuses in college athletics because everybody is trying to live up to some ideal situation. It's very innocent of us to think we can.

``Too much time is being spent trying to catch people who are cheating. That seems to be an indication that the real problem is the system.''

Deford said The National, which began publication 14 months ago, has run into circulation problems and will not achieve its goal of breaking even in its third year.

``We had hoped to break even by the third year, pay back our losses by the fifth year and begin cashing in after six years,'' he said, ``but we won't break even after three years. Maybe we will by the fourth or fifth year.

``We started the paper during a recession and it's been tough getting advertising, but our problem is circulation. We need more home delivery and mail subscriptions.

Deford said The National's circulation, which was about 250,000 two months ago, dropped to about 200,000 when the price was increased from 50 to 75 cents. But he's convinced there's a market for the newspaper.

Other comments:

* ``Football is the perfect sport for America. It's muscular Christianity, a chance for kids to show how tough they are.''

* ``At the turn of this century, most of our present sports were in place. Except for ice hockey and auto racing, we haven't taken up with any new games in a century.''

* ``There's always a place for writers who can't write. There's a place for it now. It's called USA Today.''